AINT-ANDRE, Reunion — It will take at least another day to learn
whether missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed into the sea 16
months ago.
Investigators on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean prepared to load a sea-encrusted wing fragment
onto a plane bound for France on Friday. The remnant could help unlock
the mystery of the Boeing 777 which vanished while traveling from Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on March 8, 2014.
The airplane part is expected to arrive in France on Saturday
morning, according to the Paris prosecutor's office. It will be analyzed
in special defense facilities used for airplane testing and analysis in
the city of Toulouse, according to the Defense Ministry.
Keenly aware that families of those on board
Flight 370 are desperately awaiting word on the fate of their loved
ones, officials hope to have at least some answers within a day or two.
"The most important part of this whole exercise
at the moment is to give some kind of closure to the families," said
Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss, whose country is leading the
search for the plane in a desolate stretch of ocean off Australia's
west coast.
Still, given the myriad false leads that have peppered the search, some would prefer certainty to speed.
Jacquita Gomes, whose husband, Patrick, was a
flight attendant on the missing plane, is anxious for the results of the
analysis, but wants authorities to ensure they're conclusive before
announcing them.
It's going to be a nail-biting weekend but we cannot rush it," said
Gomes, of Kuala Lumpur. "We have been waiting for more than 500 days.
The agony continues and I hope there will be answers soon."
But even if the piece is confirmed to be the
first confirmed wreckage from Flight 370, there's no guarantee
investigators can find the plane's vital black box recorders or other
debris. A multinational search effort now focused on the southern Indian
Ocean has come up empty.